A petition to build a Death Star space station has received the 25,000 signatures needed for it to be considered by the White House.

The petition, which calls on the US government to "secure funding and resources" and "begin construction" on a Death Star by 2016 now has more than 27,000 signatures.

The Death Star is the size of the Moon in the Star Wars film franchise and is capable of destroying a planet with a single laser beam.

The campaign's founder, identifying himself only as John D, is based in Longmont, Colorado, and registered the petition on the White House website on Nov 14.

The website claims that any petition gaining the appropriate number of signatures will be guaranteed an assessment by the president's staff, sent to the "appropriate policy experts" and receive an official response.

John D wrote: "By focusing our defense resources into a space-superiority platform and weapon system such as a Death Star, the government can spur job creation in the fields of construction, engineering and space exploration."

In February, students at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania calculated that the cost of steel alone for a Death Star would be 13,000 times the world's gross domestic product, or £541,261 trillion.